Ben Ferguson Intro/Outro (1:54)

You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (1:58)

Good Friday morning. It's so nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update. And this morning's is going to be a little bit different and I think you're really going to enjoy it. Eric Trump has a new book that is out about his family being attacked not only by the deep state, but also by the private sector. He talks about the lawsuits against his family, the raid of Mar a Lago, the debanking and deep platforming and then the federal government and other state governments coming after them. It is truly an incredible conversation that Senator Ted Cruz and I had with him. So today's show will be longer, but this is everything that he had to say about his new book, Under Siege. It's out now.

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Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (4:33)

It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.

Ben Ferguson Intro/Outro (4:37)

Story number one.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (4:38)

Eric Trump has a new book out talking about the weaponization of the private sector against his father, the government, the federal government against his father, and state governments that attacked his family. He was subpoenaed countless times and you'll be shocked to hear him talk about how much money it costs to defend themselves from these frivolous and ridiculous lawsuits. Senator Cruz and I had the privilege of sitting down with Eric to talk about his new book. And I want you to hear what he had to say.

Ben Ferguson (5:09)

You know, Ben, I gotta say, we try to count on being honest and candid with our viewers and listeners. And yet you just claim that we're gonna take a break from politics. And this is about as far away from taking a break from politics as I can possibly imagine. Today, we are very pleased to welcome our friend Eric Trump, President Donald Trump's son, who has a brand new book. A brand new book came out this week. The book is entitled Under Siege My Family's Fight to Save Our Nation. He is in the midst of his nationwide book tour right now. And in classic Trump fashion, he's on the list. And there's only one place to be on the list, and that is at number one. It's the number one best selling book book in America right now. And Eric, this is your first book. It ain't bad, debuting at number one. Congratulations and welcome, Mr.

Eric Trump (6:00)

Senator. Now, it will probably be my last book as well, because we're not, I'm not doing this again. The return on Time of Books, especially when you put your heart and soul into it. But yeah, we're number one on Amazon. We're number one in all the lists. And it's, I mean, it just went viral. I think, you know, people in this country are pissed off. And Mr. Senator, you've done a better job fighting against a weaponization of government than I would say just about anybody other than maybe Donald Trump, right, who's had to face all of this. And, you know, I became the pinata in this whole fight because I was the one guy who didn't have constitutional protections. I was a civilian. You know, I was the guy that was running the Trump Organization. I was the guy that ran everything that was outside of Washington, D.C. for my father when he went into the White House. And what they tried to do to us, what they tried to do to our family, what they tried to do to this nation, what they tried to do to you and all your viewers on this show is unthinkable. And somebody had to materialize it because it was the greatest governmental corruption this nation has ever seen.

Ben Ferguson (6:54)

Well, you're right. And they launched everything they had at your father, at your family. Four separate indictments. On top of that, the asinine case from the New York attorney general trying to argue that somehow global international banks are innocent waifs who are deceived and apparently are unable to value real estate because, you know, giant banks have never had to value real estate in the past. I will confess, for me, maybe the most absurd moment of all of it was, was when the idiot judge in New York valued Mar a lago at $18 million, which, which I'll Confess. I saw.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (7:36)

I would have bought it for that.

Ben Ferguson (7:37)

I saw your dad not shortly after that. And I offered it on the spot. I said, Mr. President, I'll give you 20 million right now.

Eric Trump (7:44)

Yeah, I'll take two.

Ben Ferguson (7:47)

I mean, as you know, you can't buy a hot dog stand in Palm beach for $18 million. And that notion, to me, it was the most ludicrous. It was a relatively small detail of what was a pile of idiocy upon idiocy. But you guys were the targets of it. And it cannot have been fun.

Eric Trump (8:09)

Mr. Senator, I became the most appenaed man in American history for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I'm not Hunter Biden. I never had a speeding ticket in my life. I've lived a very straight, very good life. Hard working guy, no games, never even approached the line raised, right? And they tried to destroy us. I was the one that was getting calls from the FBI. You remember the Russia hoax very well because you were probably the best person fighting against it. Eric, I hear you have secret servers in the basement of Trump Tower communicating directly with the Kremlin. I go, excuse me. I literally started, Mr. Senator, I started laughing. I started laughing. I go, first of all, you don't keep servers in basements because basements flood. Second of all, we're like largely cloud based. And they did it so a greedy woman could get about three extra votes, right? And they used that as their explanation as to why she lost. And then it was impeachment number one. And then it was impeachment number two. And then it was them attacking Kavanaugh. And then it was 112 subpoenas that I received for, again, doing nothing wrong. And then it was weaponization of every attorney general and district attorney in this country, whether it be Letitia James or Alvin Bragg or Cy Vance or Fanny Willis and her boyfriend in Fulton, Georgia, or Jack Smith or Comey. And everything that they did. Then they spied on our campaign. Then they did the weaponization of fisa. Then they took my father off the ballot in Colorado, and then they took him off the ballot in Maine. And when that didn't work, they tried to silence his voice and get rid of his First Amendment rights. So what did they do? Took him off of YouTube, took him off of Twitter, took him off of Facebook, took him off of Instagram. And when that didn't work, when we popped up Truth Social, what did they do? They had every judge impose gag orders on him. And then they raided Mar A Lago. I was the guy that got the call. When 30 FBI agents were outside screaming in a phone to me, turn off the security cameras at Mar A Lago. They did everything they could, and then they debanked us, and then they deplatformed us. And they were doing it to the people in this country as well. They were debanking them. They were going after their pastors, they were going after their churches, and they were weaponizing the irs. You know, they were skipping great people who had worked their butts off their entire year because of DEI hires and literally ruining upward mobility of people across the country. They were corrupting their children. They were teaching them revisionist history. This siege wasn't just against the Trump family. It was against all of us. It was against both of you. It was against every person that's watching us right now. And people are pissed off in this country. And that's why this book went to number one.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (10:31)

You mentioned Mar Lago a second ago and getting that phone call. Can you just explain how insane that day must have been? Cause I know people, we saw it on tv, but you were on the inside. And when you're getting a phone call, they're telling you to turn your cameras off.

Ben Ferguson (10:48)

So, like, what time of day is it? What are you doing?

Eric Trump (10:50)

How does the call come? It was about 7:50, 8:00 clock in the morning when I got a call from my team. They say, the 30 FBI agents, and they have a search warrant. I go, what are they searching? I'm not sure if I understand. Like, we have, like, such a great relationship with law enforcement. It was. It was bizarre at the time. I go, how would I not know about this from Secret Service? How would I not know? I mean, they didn't give anybody warning. And I'll never forget, I said, I finally figured out what they were doing. And I said, did anybody let my father know? And it was my team, really. And they said, no. And I go, I'll call him right now. And we met in his office, and that's when he wrote up that beautiful tweet, as you remember. And the FBI was so damn pissed that we sent out that tweet. They wanted to have the narrative. They wanted to be able to release a story. And instead, my father writes that beautiful tweet. Right now, the FBI is raiding the famous Mar A Lago, my home. And the world went crazy. The world couldn't stand it. It was the worst decision that they ever made. And remember, Senator, they said it was on behalf of nara, right? National Archives. I went on Hannity that night. I go, does anybody actually Believe a glorified library sent 30 FBI agents to invade Mar? A Lago with firearms. Give me a break. Right? And then sure enough, it comes out. That was Joe Biden and it was Merrick Garland and it was the whole host of criminals that weaponized the entire system. But I'll never Forget that call 30 FBI agents outside of Mar? A Lago. They searched Melania's room, they searched Barron's room. They took attorney client privilege documents, they took HIPAA documents. You can't make it up.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (12:15)

I know you're going to try to terrorize the New York Times a little bit. That's the hardest thing, is just to screw with them and be at the top of their list. So everyone listening, I hope you'll buy the book just so we screw with them a little bit. Sinner, you've been at the top of that list. It's hard to get there.

Ben Ferguson (12:29)

Well, I will say, Eric, you should brace yourself. It doesn't matter how many copies of the book you sell, the New York Times is going to insist that like left handed transgender witches is the number one book in America. And to be fair, in the New York Times newsroom, it probably is the number one book in America. But if you get outside the New York Times and to the rest of America, there are a lot of people right now that are going to Amazon. Go to Amazon right now. Buy Eric Truck Trump's book. Keep it at number one, annoy a liberal. Buy two, buy one for yourself and buy one to give a liberal. Just to drive them crazy and to say, explain to me again how you think weaponization is a bad thing because you're liberal friends to the extent you have any, that they haven't defriended you, they're not going to have an answer to that. Eric, tell me, what was your dad's reaction when you went in and told him, okay, the FBI agents are here. I assume he was pissed. But like, what was his immediate reaction when you tell him that?

Eric Trump (13:26)

He was actually remarkably calm. I've seen my father pissed many times, but he doesn't get pissed off in situations of kind of like great anguish and stress. Right. It's no different than Butler, but almost foreshadowed Butler. It was the same thing. I probably would have been pissed in Butler. And I think he was actually remarkably calm, especially in the aftermath of what happened. And he was always his calmest in the worst moments. Always. And Senator, you saw many of them. I mean, you were there for many of them in so many different ways. You know, he never Let emotion fly. It was a very. He goes, you got to be kidding me. All right, honey, meet me in my office. You know, we're going to write up a statement. And that's when he let that truth fly. And, you know, the rest is history. I mean, for the next month, they had helicopters buzzing over Mar A Lago. And you know, the scenes of that front gate. You remember the cop car in front of the front gate of Mar A Lago? I mean, Mar A Lago became. Not that it wasn't probably already, but it became the most famous property in the world based on that raid and what they did. And in the aftermath of all of it, we find out Jack Smith was bringing in classified folders and effectively staging photo shoots on the office floor of my father's office. But, you know, as I said before, guys, I mean, they were going through Melania's closet. They were going through Barron's room. They literally. They took his medical records. Right. Like HIPAA related records. That pissed off the judge. I can only tell you. They took attorney client documents. Right. That also really pissed off Eileen Kannon, the judge on the case.

Ben Ferguson (14:48)

Sure.

Eric Trump (14:49)

You just, you couldn't believe it. And then, you know, again, all of this was staged. You think Donald Trump just leaves classified folders, fanned out perfectly on the floor. I mean, it was all staged. It was all set up. They wanted to imprison him. They wanted to take his voice, they wanted to imprison him. They wanted him behind bars. They didn't want him to be able to campaign. They wanted to weaponize the system in any way, shape or form, and they weren't able to do it.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (15:12)

A lot of people remember the de platforming, and you mentioned that earlier, and you go back to the end of his first term in office, but one of the things you mentioned earlier on was they tried to ruin your businesses by debanking you. Can you explain for people that don't understand just how critical that was? In a time of the Trump Organization, you've been handed the family business to run it, and now you're finding out you can't even have banking the way that you need to have banking to literally run businesses, whether you're a big business or a small business. A lot of people listening right now. If you don't have a bank, you don't have a business.

Eric Trump (15:45)

Yeah, Ben, it was that times 100. I mean, they literally. It was coordinated by the administration. There's no question about it. And they called up and they said, listen, congratulations, you canceled the. I was Getting these letters. I got one from Capital one. They had 300 bank accounts. And these aren't like baby bank accounts. These are massive commercial buildings that have hundreds of tenants. You know, thousands of people working in these buildings. Hundreds if not thousands of vendors, heavy real estate taxes. I mean, people. Hundreds and hundreds of people depend. Their livelihoods depend on these businesses. They've got complicated lockbox provisions and loan, you know, loan documents. Thousands of inputs coming in like this. And they just called up, your accounts are gonna get closed. You've got one or two days to move them, and congratulations, you're done. All because we wore a hat that said Make America Great Again. That was red. These were commercial buildings. These were condominium associations. These were small golf courses. These were residential shops. These were escrow accounts. Things that had nothing to do. Nothing to do with politics whatsoever. And they canceled us like we were dogs. Capital One was the worst. J.P. morgan was horrible. Bank of America was horrible. First Republic was terrible. But it wasn't just the banks. It was platform Shopify. Shopify literally gave us a notice. They do all the E Comm platforms in the middle of the night. Turned off our accounts like we were nothing. Right? We were selling golf polos that we have from Mar a Lago. And they did everything they could to hurt us, to turn off the rails, Right? Again. They wanted our voice gone. They wanted us bankrupt. They wanted the name off of every building. They wanted us thrown out of New York. You had Letitia James that was trying to repossess our assets. I mean, it was almost like forfeiture. It was not constitutional. Hence the reason the appellate courts threw out the case. 5, 0. And we got a resounding victory two weeks ago or three weeks ago. Guys, they tried everything they could. And because I was the guy outside of Washington D.C. because I ran the company, it all fell on me. That's how I became the most subpoenaed person in the history of this country, having never done a damn thing wrong. They wanted to get to my father.

Ben Ferguson (17:47)

Coming through me now, were these business accounts, personal accounts? Both. I mean, how many accounts are we talking about, roughly?

Eric Trump (17:54)

Like, what, 500? You know, lots of those being business accounts, all of them being us. You know, my wife has, like, athletic clothing line. You know, JPMorgan Chase wouldn't open up an account. So, you know, for her, she's not Donald Trump. She's not the Trump Organization. They did this to everyone in the family. If you even came close, if you even came close. I have a little farm with a couple buddies they canceled that account doesn't wear a Trump name. They were indiscriminate. If it was six degrees of separation from Trump, they canceled us. And honestly, guys, I've been outspoken, big fan of cryptocurrency. That's how I found crypto, because I realized how quickly financial institutions can be weaponized against the American people and realize that there's nothing that can be done on, you know, using traditional financial institutions that can't be done better, faster, cheaper, safer, and more efficiently using cryptocurrency. And I'm the biggest proponent of it.

Ben Ferguson (18:53)

Did they even. Even purport to give you any explanation, or did they just say, no, it's canceled? Like. Like they didn't. Was there any details? Or you just get phone calls or get an email and say, okay, this. This account's done?

Eric Trump (19:06)

Yeah, other than a lot of those, you know, a lot of the people that worked in the. In the banks who otherwise said, this is the most. I can't believe it. I can't believe what my bank's doing. This is all political. That's what they're saying in the corridors every day. They canceled you for political reasons. There's no other explanation. They're telling us, you know, they're telling us, we can't talk to you ever again. I was unbelievable, and I would not wish that on my worst enemy to take the rails of being able to pay employees. These are housekeepers, these are janitors, these are engineers, these are security officers, these are drivers, hospitality workers. To not be able to pay them a salary, all because somebody wanted to politicize a system against a candidate because they happen to be a conservative and they believed in making America great again.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (19:50)

Senator, this is a story that we're hearing about the weaponization of the private sector. Not the government, the private sector against the Trump Organization. The moment that he just said 500 bank accounts just shut down, I'm shocked by that. I think you were as well.

Ben Ferguson (20:09)

That number, I'd never heard anything remotely close to that. I mean, that. That really is stunning. So. So you're running your families outside businesses. You get these calls. What do you do when you're given what you said, 24 hours, 48 hours notice, like, like, were there banks that were. Were willing to welcome your business, or what did you do with. With 500 accounts being canceled?

Eric Trump (20:32)

You had a lot of attorney generals and you had a lot of government institutions that were going to these banks saying, don't even think about it. Don't touch that account. You know, Letitia James was doing that to the bonding companies when we had toafter the initial ruling when we had to post a $600 million bond, by the way, that was like five times the size of the Boeing bond that made them, you know, literally. I mean, it was the biggest bond ever seen in the country, you know, and she was going to the very same institution saying, don't even touch that bond. So we had to post the bond based on the court before we had overturned. And she was going to the biggest insurance company saying, you don't touch that bond. You're registered in New York and if you touch that bond, I'm going to think less favorably on you. That's how badly they weaponize the system. What do you do when you get those letters? You want to crawl under your desk. And honestly I had probably 100 people in the company that didn't sleep for a six month period of time who were distraught. And thank God we had enough little local banks that you move all the accounts unthinkable to these little local branches who want to take your money. But These weren't the JPMorgans. These weren't the bank of Americas. They were small little mom and pop regional banks that did the right thing and honestly probably saved us based on the fact that they were willing to do the right thing. This didn't just happen to us. I was on the campaign trail. I'd hear from people every single day. You know, my bank canceled me. Why? Well, my company makes a spring and the spring goes in a fishing reel. And that fishing reel sold at Bass Pro Shops. And bass Pro Shops sells 12 gauge duck hunting ammo. And they thought the affiliation. I heard this everywhere I went. I heard it from the crypto guys. I believed in bitcoin. I believed in stablecoin. I believe in the future of kind of modern finance. And because I believed in cryptocurrency, my banks canceled me. Wachovia canceled me. Bank of America canceled me. Guys, I heard this all over the place. We need to make this illegal. And it is, it's illegal in a lot of states and under a lot of banking clauses. But, but the fact that you can literally, I mean, could you imagine if AT&T or Verizon just decided to cancel all conservatives cell phones? Yeah, right. If you can't bank, you can't survive. If you can't bank, you can't eat. If you can't bank, you can't pay employees. And yet they turned us off like we were dogs.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (22:46)

How much money do you think that Trump. When you guys were out during the four years and under siege like this, how many business deals got blown up because people were afraid even to just do business with you because they were afraid their business would be affected, Negative. They could be targeted. I'm assuming that was a reality for quite some time.

Eric Trump (23:03)

Well, I talk a lot about in the book. I mean, there were, there were reporters that just made their whole livelihoods. David Fahrenholt from the Washington Post and others, you know, made their entire livelihoods calling up, you know, vendors of ours, calling up our employees, calling up brides and grooms that were going to get married at one of the properties, one of the hotels. They are.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (23:21)

Hold on.

Patriot Mobile Advertiser (23:22)

They were harassing people that were getting.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (23:24)

Married at Trump Resorts.

Eric Trump (23:26)

I have more emails than you can possibly imagine. You know, I hear you're gonna go get married at Mar a Lago. Oh, really? You know, this might have to make the front cover of our respective paper. You know, can you please give me comment? And these brides and grooms are saying, I just want to get married in peace. You know, I just, you know, this is a beautiful property. I'm not a political person. I just, you know, it's a five star property. I love the place. It's convenient. My family lives nearby. Whatever the hell, the reason they were doing that, they were extorting employees. They were going up to employees. They frankly tried to do it to me. Hey, you tell us anything about Donald Trump, we'll let you go. You know, all your problems will get.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (24:02)

Hold on. They tried to turn you against your own father.

Eric Trump (24:06)

Alvin Bragg, Are you kidding me? Cyrus Vance, all of them. They weaponized every DA in AG to try and flip every single person to say anything negative to get any negative testimony against Donald Trump for their own political purposes. Absolutely. That was the whole game they played. And no one in our company broke. Guys, this was the siege that I dealt with every single day. Right? I mean, it was all of these factors that came together all at once, all the time, doing anything they could to just chop us off at every single. I mean, when they made up the dirty dossier. When they made up. Right. I mean, they have stories about prostitution in there, about Golden. You know what's right? What do you think they were trying. They were trying to divorce my father. They were trying to destroy his marriage. They were trying to break up our family. That's what they were trying to do. Also, a greedy woman could get again, two more votes. These people are sick. These people are deranged. And there's been zero accountability for any of it. And as a son who fought by my father's side every single day during this battle, somebody had to tell this story. Somebody had to tell the inside perspective of the lengths that a corrupt government will go to besides just spying on campaigns and despite just raiding homes, you know, all the things that they did to try and destroy us, to try and destroy make America great again and try and destroy conservatives all across the country.

Ben Ferguson (25:31)

Look, it was unmitigated evil. And it was driven. Part of it was driven by hate. Today, the defining characteristic, I think, of the Democrat Party is they hate your father and they hate your family. I mean, that anything connected to your father, they hate. And I think it also, though, was a tough, deep contempt for democracy. I think every one of these indictments, I think the weaponization that we saw their underlying terror is that the voters would do what they did in November of 2024 and vote to reelect your father. And this was all about undermining democracy and preventing the voters from doing that. You know, Eric, you mentioned earlier that you described yourself as the most subpoenaed man in America. How many subpoenas did you get and did you testify a lot of times? Were they demanding documents? What subpoenas were coming in?

Eric Trump (26:20)

112 subpoenas. I sat in more depositions than any human being in the history of depositions. And by the way, these are like big boy subpoenas, right? They're all coming from, you know, your close friend Elizabeth Warren, as we like to call her Pocahontas, and many others we turned over. I mean, they would ask for document discovery. You know, please give us every email in the company. And they would list a thousand words. But aside from that, they would list national and international. Well, all our hotels are Trump International Hotel, and all our golf courses are Trump National Golf Course. You can probably see where this is going. Every email signature of every person in the company either has the word national or international in it. That's their fishing expedition. I actually brought this to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court specifically told them, you can't fish, right? And they did it anyway. The judges didn't give a damn. They wanted to find any comma that was out of place, and they couldn't. I mean, in the Letitia James trial, literally, Deutsche bank was on the stand saying that Trump was the best lender that they've ever had. Right. We made them hundreds of millions of dollars, paid off every loan, paid it off ahead of time. Never missed a payment, even in the Darkest days of COVID when they made us shut down our properties. We never missed, we never defaulted, we never breached a covenant. And then one day I wake up to the nightmare of you're fined $600 million for doing nothing wrong with banks that loved us, that testified that they loved us. I mean it was, you know, and that's because you had a crooked judge again. Got overturned 5, 0 at the next court. But they rigged the entire system. And you're seeing them do that right now, right? You're seeing them do that in Washington D.C. where 94% of the cases that go in front of the lower courts are literally going against the administration. And then they all have to go up on appeal and get overturned. But guys, the beautiful thing about this story is we won, right? I mean, the media lost their credibility. No one likes the mainstream media. I mean, my wife is on Fox News on a Saturday at 9pm and she's getting 4x the ratings of CNN on the same time slot on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in primetime slots. Right? No one likes the mainstream media. ABC's dead, NBC's dead, CNN's dead. And Independent voices like these podcasts are winning the day.

Ben Ferguson (28:31)

By the way, she is doing an awesome job. I had a chance to be on her show and she's a great interviewer, cuz she's relaxed, she's having fun, she's asking real questions and it's night and day. You know, I, I will occasionally do, do cnn. Poor Ben was on CNN for six, seven years. I actually think he, he has a padded room and he like, like puts on a straight jacket when he remembers those times.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (28:53)

Fighting commies for seven years.

Eric Trump (28:55)

Hey listen, I just came off Kaitlan Collins about 20 minutes ago. All right? So it's a. Trust me.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (29:00)

Thoughts and prayers, Eric. Thoughts and prayers.

Eric Trump (29:02)

Thoughts and prayers.

Ben Ferguson (29:04)

You know, it's, it's so bad. Let me ask you, when all of this was coming in, and it is not exaggeration to say there has never been a political leader subject to more weaponization, more assaults, more insanely unfair attacks than your father has been. Was there ever time that you felt yourself giving in to despair? And do you think your dad ever did?

Eric Trump (29:35)

Yeah, honestly, it's like we're like masochistic, we like pain or something along those lines, right? It's like a weird, a weird trait. Right. And I think it served us well. But no, I think we were so pissed off at that point. We wanted to fight and we wanted to win and we want to save the constitution. We want to Save the American flag. We want to save religion in society. We want to save the second amendment. We want to end wokeness. We wanted to stop the DEI nonsense, you know, men my size swimming in women's sport. We wanted to save the greatest country in the world against absolute lunacy. And so we never gave up. We never stopped fighting. We went out there and we punched back every single day. And we did that as a family. I never left that stage. And honestly, I've never been more proud of a human being in my life.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (30:17)

All right, so our guest with us is Eric Trump. Senator, you and I were just talking with him about this, really, his family being under siege. You talked about these big boy subpoenas. Part of that is to financially hurt you. What did you guys spend just doing the fighting? Of all the lawsuits against you during that four year period, how much did it cost you?

Eric Trump (30:42)

Roughly 400 million. You know, guys, I laugh when people, oh, Trump is profiting off of government. I go, wait, excuse me. If you want to come in, I'll break down the finances. You want Trump's profit? We spent $400 million to defend ourselves against nonsense. The fact that we did not have secret servers communicating with the Kremlin, the fact that Don wasn't a Russian agent. Remember, you had Adam Schiff out there every single day. Donald Trump Jr. Is a Russian agent. Guys, if he wasn't protected by the speech and debate laws, you would have. Honestly, the guy would have been worth zero. He would have been living in a shoebox. Based on the fact that you would have sued him for slander and taken everything that he ever had. It was all made up, lies. They did everything they possibly could to take us down. We spent over $400 million between that, Letitia, Alvin Bragg, Cy Vance, Fanny. I mean, I could go on and on the raids.

Ben Ferguson (31:39)

The Mar A Lago was the worst to deal with. Between Alvin Bragg, Cy Vance, Letitia James, Jack Smith, who was the worst.

Eric Trump (31:45)

Probably Letitia, if you wanna know the truth. I mean, it was so corrupt. And I don't know, Alvin Bragby's. You had Bershon. I mean, Judge Merchand's daughter is like the head digital fundraiser for the Democratic Party. And the guy wouldn't recuse himself. And literally you'd be sitting in these courtrooms, guys. And I would not leave my father's side. I sat next to him every single day. If he was there, I was gonna be there as a son to support him. And most of the time, some of these cases, I wasn't Gagged in. So normally I was the guy in the courthouse staff, you know, shouting and yelling at the cameras as to what the hell was actually going on, because that's the only way you could communicate a message. But guys, I mean, you had liberal, and I mean liberal reporters who was in that courtroom shaking their heads, saying, none of this makes any sense. I mean, they shut down all of Manhattan, lower Manhattan, for a hundred thousand dollar payment that my father didn't even make, made by a lawyer. They indicted him 34 times. I mean, you know, Al Capone had one felony indictment. They indicted my father 34 times for $100,000 payment, by the way, by a district attorney who ran on the premise of reducing, just decriminalizing just about anything. You could shoot somebody in the face in Times Square and it was decriminalized and you're gonna let them out and you're gonna have community policing and all sorts of nonsense. I mean, he ran on the premise of literally emptying Rikers Island. So you had no criminals in there. Yet 34 felonies in a six month period of time is shutting down New York and the FDR drive every day over $100,000. I mean, it wasn't believable.

Ben Ferguson (33:15)

If only your father were mugging people in Times Square, then Alvin Bragg would never have prosecuted him. But instead, he committed the unspeakable sin of not only being President of the United States, but being an extraordinarily successful and bold President of the United States, which is an unpardonable sin. All right, we don't have much time left, but I want to take it a little bit lighter and ask, what was it like? Like your father is. Is unique. I've never in my life have I met anyone remotely like your father. He and I have spent a lot of time together. He has extraordinary courage. But before he was president, what was it like growing up as a kid with Donald Trump as your father? Like, what was he like as a dad when you were 10?

Eric Trump (34:01)

Honestly, the greatest dad you could ever imagine. Expected big things from us, right? I mean, every day I'd go give him kiss before I went to school. Honey, no drink drinking, no drugs, no smoking. You better get good grades. And by the way, never trust anybody, right? You know, once in a while, add that he never, never trusts anyone.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (34:15)

Hey, that's probably how important that was going to be now.

Eric Trump (34:17)

Yeah, probably benefited us pretty well. So amazing guy, you know, listen, we were spoiled as hell in that we lived in, you know, Trump Tower. We had a beautiful roof over Our head. We were always well fed. We had the best education, but we were never handed money. We were never handed cash if we wanted something. If I wanted a fishing rod, congratulations, you're working, working for it. I got on our construction sites when I was 11 years old doing demo, doing electrical H vac, running backhoes, excavators. I grew up working with my hands on our construction sites with many of the guys that work for me today. And you know what? He wanted us to learn a trait. He wanted us to learn the value of a dollar. And by the way, he wanted us to be tired as hell at the end of the day because listen, don't give type A kids or any kid, but don't give type A kids money or free time because bad things happen. And amen. He was an amazing father. He is an amazing father. And everything we've ever done, we fought together. Whether it's real estate, whether it was the Apprentice. I was on that for seven seasons. And then in politics, I mean, when he decided to run, he said to us, he goes, you know, kids, let's do this. You know, I was on Megyn Kelly. I didn't know what the hell immigration was. I mean, Senator, this was not my world. I built hotels and all of a sudden I'm in the middle of box.

Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (35:25)

You were on the wall and now you're on tv.

Eric Trump (35:28)

I've got nine illegal immigrants around me and I'm battling all of them. And I don't know the first damn thing about illegal immigration, right? I mean, like, this is not the world that we came from. But my father's a remarkable guy. My mother was an amazing powerhouse. And strict, demanded manners, demanded respect, demanded work ethic. And I have the greatest parents you can ever imagine. I spent a lot of time in Under Siege talking about, you know, being raised by them and you know, it was unique in so many ways, but they did everything they could in this strange world that we lived in to ground us and make sure we turned out to be hard workers, normal, and didn't have any of these kind of Hunter Biden esque problems. I don't have a laptop from hell. I don't do finger painting. Selling it to foreign nationals all over the world. Never married. My brother's ex wife. Never did that kind of stuff. No drugs, no perversion. I was always a good kid who believed in God and believed in hard work and lived an honest life.

Ben Ferguson (36:22)

Eric, I can't tell you how many times, dozens, if not hundreds of times people have commented that one of the things they admire most about your dad is you and your brothers and sisters. And listen, it is hard for any successful person to raise good kids. It's challenging. There's a lot of pressure. And, you know, I know your entire family, and I will say, literally, people early on throughout the process, they'll comment, well, you know, somehow his kids are like, like, not messed up and incredibly successful and put together. And, I mean, it's. All right, let me ask you, let's say we have some young parents that are listening to this podcast. Are there any lessons a young parent, by the way, you know, Ben has young kids. I have teenage kids. Are there any lessons, any lessons from your dad that young parents should know or lessons that you've tried to apply?

Eric Trump (37:18)

Yeah, keep them poor and make them start working early. Honestly, I mean, that's what it is. Keep them poor. Don't give Type A kids money and don't give them endless time. That's just a bad recipe. And I can't tell you guys how many friends I had who were peers, who went to school with me. And three quarters of them ended up in rehab. And a lot of them went down bad roads. And guess what? They were getting ferraris when they're 16 years old. What do you ever want to aspire to get? If that's. If that's how you're being raised? Does it surprise you that those people don't have work ethic? Does it surprise you that they go down bad roads? My father would never let that happen to us. And he made us work our butts off. And believe me, if I wasn't good at what I did, real estate wise, I would not be in this chair. Forget about nepotism for a second. If we weren't incredibly capable, believe me, I wouldn't be running one of the largest real estate empires anywhere in the world. He made us work and he made us prove that we were good at what we do. And we fought every single day, and we're an incredibly tight family. And he's a remarkable person. He's my best friend. I love him to death and I'm so proud of him, especially in a week where he's accomplished as much as he had. I am so damn proud of what he. Of what he did and what he's accomplished and the hell of a journey. Guys, it's all worth it. This is all worth it. The siege is all worth it. Based on the great things that are happening to our country and our world.

Ben Ferguson Intro/Outro (38:39)

Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update. With Ben Ferguson. Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now. And for more in depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here tomorrow.

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Ben Ferguson (39:06)

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Eric Trump (39:07)

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Ben Ferguson Co-host or Interviewer (39:13)

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Eric Trump (39:16)

Okay, give it a try.

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Eric Trump (39:45)

You're a good boy. That's right, dude.

Ben Ferguson (39:46)

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Fiasco Benghazi Narrator (39:58)

I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten they called me a masochist called rolled their eyes.

Ben Ferguson (40:06)

Or just asked why Benghazi? The truth became a web of lies.

Fiasco Benghazi Narrator (40:11)

From Prologue projects and Pushkin Industries. This is Fiasco Benghazi.

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Fiasco Benghazi Narrator (40:20)

Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Eric Trump (40:27)

This is an iHeart podcast.